Daigan was 84 and died on the afternoon of Sunday, April 26th. He and I got close when I moved to Green Gulch in 1985 and became a transitional director. Katrinka and I visited with him and his wife, Arlene, before leaving for Asia. He gave me this incredibly cool and incomprehensible book he wrote for fun a couple of years ago. Can't find the name - don't think it's available but there's a link below to a book of his poetry. In 85 I asked if he'd clean up the paint shed and go through the plywood scraps and instead of throwing away the bad stuff he made a whole slew of dripped colorful paintings on plywood. Elin insisted on buying one from him. I took a few, gave all but one away which I still have in storage. He and Idilio and I hung out some at Green Gulch and they had horrific stories of the Korean war, stories with lots of corpses. He was sort of sad back then and definitely got more and more content as the years went by, especially when he got together with Arlene. He was a truly humble, gentle person.
Photo Daigan Lueck in the Green Gulch Farm zendo, by Alison Bank, via Lion's Roar via blogs.sfzc.org.
Sweeping Zen obituary
Lion's Roar obiturary
cuke interview with Daigan
Green Gulch page for Daigan
Dharma talk by Daigan
photo by Max Swanger off Sweeping Zen
Sweeping Zen obituary